Distributors you need to know 2024 - Part One
From niche specialists to multi-billion broadliners, CRN ranks 42 distributors to watch in the UK for 2024
In the two years since CRN's last Distributors You Need to Know list, much has shifted on the UK distribution scene – from the big tremors such as Westcoast Group merging with rival European giant ALSO Group, to the smaller shakes such as Northamber entering Ireland with its purchase of Renaissance Technology Services.
On a more existential level, the past two years have seen major distribution players redefine their place in the channel by deepening vendor ties and continually innovating on the services front, leading to the term VAD becoming near-ubiquitous.
With several of the distributors who made the 2022 list now being part of rival groups, the impact of post-pandemic M&A is evident in this year's ranking.
This three-part feature counts down the largest UK broadliners, specialists and VADs on CRN's radar by revenue, starting with the SMEs.
Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 where we will be ranking the mid-tier and, finally, the top disties in the UK.
39. ABC Distribution
HQ: Leeds, West Yorkshire
Formed during lockdown, Leeds-based ABC Distribution is already punching above its weight. The distributor declined to disclose its revenue numbers for its most recent financial year, which is why we've included it in the ranking at number 42, based on prior numbers.
However, MD Chris Walsh told CRN of all the effort the distributor has been putting in to staff up, hit revenue targets and, most importantly, maintain its reputation for partner engagement.
Q&A with managing director Chris Walsh
CRN: What is your current headcount?
CW: "Around ten including developers, and staff behind the scenes."
CRN: What has been your highlight of 2024 so far?
CW: "Reaching four years since the birth of the company and realising we have achieved something so far that at times we dare not even dream of.
"To be at this stage now, with an exciting strategy for this next financial year that is planned, for the first time since the business was started, we are doing more than working hard. It is a phrase I generally don't like but working smarter now is key."
CRN: Do you expect to grow further by the end of the financial year – in terms of revenue and headcount?
CW: "100 per cent. Our turnover didn't quite hit where we hoped last year but that was due to a number of multi-year deals becoming one-year deals which at the time was sole destroying but fast forward to this year and we will now see revenue that had those multi-year deals happened last year we wouldn't have seen.
"We have also been overjoyed with the number of partners we are dealing with outside of the UK so whilst that can bring its own headaches our collective ‘European' business is going strong."
CRN: Have you made any major vendor signings this year?
CW: "Adding DNS Filter & Secpod to the mix this year is an attractive proposition for us but we also believe that in the current climate and strategy we have in place with Spycloud preparing for 2025 they are almost like a new vendor."
CRN: What do you think are the biggest M&A trends impacting distribution this year?
CW: "Smaller vendors being acquired sooner than we would like doesn't help.
"Perimeter 81 being acquired by Check Point as one example but the big boys seem to put their hands in their pockets a few years earlier than they used to and when you specialise in launching new vendors to the UK market you often can lose money in year one and need a good three year period to claw back investment made in the said vendor.
"It does mean upon launching a vendor we are more mindful now how quick the investors or founders may hope to sell the company on so we can make an educated decision into how we engage with that vendor."
CRN: What's one market trend that nobody is talking about?
CW: "In our market I don't believe we miss areas but sometimes forget about the simple things.
"As technology evolves and we rely on machine learning/AI, I can't help but feel we are neglecting what we have said for years and that is relating to most team sports ‘You are only as strong as your weakest link'.
"Often, your weakest link in business is the staff who are busy on many fronts and can be open to user error.
"This is what machine learning and AI is meant to reflect but like any of these ‘technologies' if the information you feed it from the outset isn't the quality needed then as the saying goes, ‘rubbish in equals rubbish out'.
CRN: What have been your biggest business growth areas this year?
CW: "I am happiest with our growth of partner engagement more than a particular revenue stream.
"We have a great partner community, and I think they know we don't sign a new vendor every month so we only take technologies to them when we believe it compliments what their current business model is and we try not to push a square peg in a round hole for the sake of a ‘partner meeting'.
38. EnableX Group
2022 Revenue: £9.5m
HQ: Washington, West Sussex
Itself comprised of three channel businesses – Pragma, Technland and Candio, this regional distributor was acquired by communications provider Gamma in January 2024.
EnableX primarily focuses on enabling resellers to tap into opportunities across various technology sectors, particularly in cloud communications and Software as a Service (SaaS).
The most recent and final independent revenue number we were able to access for the specialist distie, was £9.5m.
37. Nuvola Distribution
2022 Revenue: £11m
HQ: Swallowfield, Berkshire
Nuvola is a prominent technology distributor based in the UK, which also boasts offices in Ireland.
Formerly known as Nuage Communications, Nuvola's value-added services include technical support, consultancy, and training.
The broadliner serves multiple sectors including healthcare, education, and finance.
In January 2023, it signed Polish monitoring solutions group Sycope, marking the vendor's entry into the UK and Ireland markets.
The deal allowed Nuvola to promote and distribute Warsaw-HQ Sycope's IT solutions for security monitoring and network and application performance in the region.
36. Companial
2022 UK revenue: £12.7m
UK HQ: Farnborough, Hampshire
Due to a lack of fresh figures for Netherlands-based Companial, we're using recycled figures for the cloud solutions, software and hardware distributor.
With over 200 employees in total, Companial serves various markets across Europe, but in the UK, its operations are relatively small, counting fewer than ten staff.
Formed through the 2022 merger of Microsoft distributors 1ClickFactory and QBS Group, this VAD primarily serves the SMB market.
Its offerings include licensing, cloud services, and IT infrastructure solutions.
35. Trust Distribution
Revenue: £12.8m
HQ: Heywood, Lancashire
Trust, which bills itself as a 100 per cent channel-focused distributor, saw revenues decline by 16 per cent in its most recent financial year, citing continuing pandemic drag, Panasonic leaving the telecoms market and Mitel discontinuing production of the MiVoice250 phone system.
Despite the overall downturn which continued since 2020, the distie cited its investment in new products and services as a source of new business, to the tune of £2m.
This came at a significant cost to the business, particularly in terms of Trust's investment in developing a hybrid-cloud offer, it said.
It had 39 employees as of its most recent financial year.
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34. Smithie UK
Revenue: £14.4m
HQ: Basingstoke, Hampshire
Smithie UK, whose business is focused on the dual pillars of IT and LED displays, was another specialist distributor which saw revenues decline significantly in its 2023 financial year.
The Hampshire-based distie cited a competitive market as one of the key factors behind its performance.
Its key vendors include ASUS, Antec, Apacer, Canyon, Liteon, Pioneer, Prestigio, Samsung, Toshiba and Verbatim.
33. Simms International
Revenue: £21.9m
HQ: Lenham, Kent
2023 proved to be another challenging year for Simms' revenues, as the Intel and ATP distie recorded a dip to £21.9m.
Even so, the memory and storage-focused distributor remained profitable amid a ‘difficult' year, marked by price declines across key product lines.
Q&A with Kevin Howse, CCO
What is your current headcount?
"30-40."
What has been your highlight of 2024 so far?
"Growth vs 2023."
Do you expect to grow further by the end of the financial year – in terms of revenue and headcount?
"Yes, on both counts."
Have you made any major vendor signings this year?
"No, we remain confident that our existing line up can help us serve existing and future customers in a way that will allow us to hit our 2024 targets."
Are you planning any acquisitions this financial year?
"No but we are increasing our reach organically."
What do you think are the biggest M&A trends impacting distribution this year?
"Tech is and remains an exciting platform for growth, we'd expect to see further consolidation for sector specific positioning, PE levels for the right opportunities to increase and ESG factors to drive decision making more than in the past."
What's one market trend that nobody is talking about?
"Shortening product lifecycles, challenges, and opportunities this causes the entire supply chain."
What have been your biggest business growth areas this year?
"Server, edge computing and gaming."
32. Titan Data Solutions
Revenue: £30m
UK HQ: London
Another pandemic baby, Canary Wharf-based Titan Data Solutions celebrated hitting the £30m revenue mark this year and has now set its sights on the next big milestone - £100m.
Now in its sixth year, the key phrase for the business is ‘sustainable growth' as the founders are putting in place a new org structure, having recently moved to a larger office and welcomed their first cohort of apprentices.
Q&A with Ben Jackson, CEO
What is your current headcount?
Titan now has a headcount of 34 people.
What has been your highlight of 2024 so far?
If you will allow me, I actually have two highlights this year that have made me incredibly proud as the CEO of Titan.
Firstly, our growth this year is an incredible achievement for the company and is testament to the hard work and dedication of everyone within the business.
Having completed our fifth financial year in business, it is brilliant to see the rapid double-digit growth of Titan continue year after year.
Secondly, this year we introduced our graduate programme. We all know that there is a skills shortage within the industry so we decided to take a proactive approach to addressing this, launching an initiative that allows us to skill up salespeople the 'Titan way' and equip them with the knowledge and expertise that will allow them to thrive within our industry.
I am very proud to see this programme come to fruition and see our first intake into the team, and I can't wait to see them flourish within Titan.
Do you expect to grow further by the end of the financial year – in terms of revenue and headcount?
Yes, this year we're forecasting £45m to March '25.
In terms of headcount, we do not intend to grow the team significantly, however we will look to make some strategic hires to further enhance the team and the value we provide to resellers and vendors.
Have you made any major vendor signings this year?
I would not say that there have been any "standout" signings for us this year.
Over the years, Titan have carefully curated a vendor portfolio of solutions to help customers address the diverse challenges they encounter with their data.
We now prioritise adding technologies to our vendor map that bolster our ability to offer complete solutions, identifying market leaders and emerging innovators that allow us to continue to offer the very best end-to-end data solutions on the market.
Are you planning any acquisitions this financial year?
We are not currently planning on any acquisitions this year. As we have expanded our business into new territories, namely Scandinavia and the Middle East and North Africa, we have done it by incorporating in the regions as opposed to doing so through acquisition. This is how we intend to expand into new territories as we move ahead.
What do you think are the biggest M&A trends impacting distribution this year?
For distributors, M&A trends tend to focus on acquisition to expand their footprint.
This approach is often the quickest method by which to grow the business throughout their region. I don't see this tactic changing, but as a distributor I think it's important to carefully consider acquisitions to ensure that they align with their corporate goals.
For example, Titan have a proven business model that could be disrupted heavily with the wrong acquisition.
This is why we are opting to incorporate in new territories and build from the ground up to maintain our value-added proposition.
It is interesting to see the ALSO and Westcoast merger, this is a big move and one that should concern some of the broadliners focused on the UK and Europe, however to specialists like ourselves this just brings further opportunities.
What's one market trend that nobody is talking about?
In the UK, we have some of the brightest minds in the world, but our ability to compete on the global stage is often held back due to a lack of innovation.
The UK was primed to position themselves as a leader in technology and AI, however the government's recent cancellation of £1.3bn in funding will set us back considerably over the next decade.
I think it is a great shame and I hope the government reconsiders its position on this so that the incredible institutions that exist within the UK can drive AI innovation into the future.
What have been your biggest business growth areas this year?
Sometimes things happen within the industry that send shockwaves through the channel.
With Broadcom acquiring VMware, partners and their customers have been heavily impacted by the acquisition in recent times.
Amidst growing uncertainty, price hikes, and terminated partner agreements, we were able to help support our partners and end users as they navigated away from VMware, looking for leading alternatives.
Scale Computing is a great example of this for HCI and we have been able to position them to address the challenges that end users are facing. As a testament to our success and growth with Scale in the last year, we were awarded their International Distribution Partner of the Year in Las Vegas April '24.
31. Kite Distribution
Revenue: £30.2m
UK HQ: Anstey, Leicestershire
With several key vendor signings in 2023, including Appgate, Wib and Sectigo, the distie managed to grow revenues by nearly £10m in its recent financial year – an impressive achievement in a tough market.
Even so, the distributor acknowledged that market pressures had affected margins, as customers sought to negotiate more favourable commercial agreements.
Gross profit increased 13.4 per cent to £2.4m.
30. Target Components
Revenue: £32.8m
UK HQ: Castleford, West Yorkshire
Target Components is a hardware and software IT distributor based in Wakefield, Yorkshire.
Privately owned since 1998, Target became a majority employee owned business in June 2022 and offers a broad portfolio of hardware and software products.
In 2022 Target appointed a new Managing Director, Michael Lawrence, and made some key changes to the management team.
Target works with key brands such as AMD, Microsoft, Lenovo and Ubiquiti and has a number of key partnerships supporting both its distribution and system build businesses.
Target owns a number of exclusive brands and focus on solutions for the independent reseller as well as supporting key Sis, VARs and online resellers across the UK.
Target offers a custom PC build service and works in partnership with brands like Gigabyte, Kingston and Antec to bring core and custom built PCs to both the gaming and business market.
Financially, Target posted turnover of around £32.5m in its last reported accounts in 2023. The company is categorised as a medium-sized enterprise, with over 50 employees.
29. EET
Revenue: £37.5m
UK HQ: Uxbridge, Middlessex
EET UK Distribution Limited is a specialist IT distributor based in Uxbridge, Greater London. Established on August 28, 2007, it operates as a private limited company. EET UK is part of the larger EET Group, a major European distributor with operations in 23 countries, focusing on delivering IT products, solutions, and components.
EET UK Distribution offers a wide range of IT and technology products, including spare parts, computer accessories, and consumer electronics, representing vendors including Dell, HP, HPE, Ubiquiti and Cambium Networks, among others.
The company primarily serves resellers, integrators, and retailers across the UK, supplying products from over 1,100 brands.
Financially, EET UK has maintained a strong position with a turnover of around £37.51m as of their last reported accounts in 2023. The company is categorised as a medium-sized enterprise, with between 50 to 250 employees.
The UK business is led by Soren Drewsen, who serves as CEO, and Sunil Bouri, managing director.